


doctor, doctor

by rosebarsoap



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Boss/Employee Relationship, Gen, this'll never be properly Finished but i like it so HERE, throws at u
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 22:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20396917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosebarsoap/pseuds/rosebarsoap
Summary: your boss asks for some assistance, but it isn't strictly professional in tone.(spoilers for julian's route)(kinda)





	doctor, doctor

You stand in front of his office door and swallow thickly. He’s just your _boss._ He’s probably scribbling away in that book of his, the one even you aren’t allowed to look at. You wonder what he’s hiding, but it’s not your place to pry; he’s your superior, and it’s not like you can do much spying since he’s in his office all day. You knock, call his name through the wood.

“Come in— and you can call me _Julian,_ you know.” 

Julian opens the door with a flourish, swinging it open wide. His loose white shirt hangs off his shoulders, auburn hair covering half of his face, but his wide smirk radiates through the darkness of the dungeon. You fiddle with the papers tucked under your arm as he folds his arms across his chest. You have to tell him about the results of one of the tests, you announce, nodding down at your armful of documents.

“Oh? Do enlighten me,” he says, interest indicated by a single arch of one of his thick brows. You launch into the explanation as Julian ushers you into his office, closing the door behind you, and you start filing through the papers to find the appropriate letter… but he stops you with a hand atop the pile. Looking up to meet his eye, you tilt your head in puzzlement, the dim light of the candles in his office doing nothing to hide how his face flushes pink. Is something the matter? Your question makes him startle.

“Oh, er, nothing! Nothing at all, don’t worry, I just… Well…”

He sighs, and the air makes part of the hair obscuring his face blow up around his brow. You think you catch a hint of… red? Julian starts stammering through an excuse but stops when you reach up, watching him for any sign of rejection, before pushing his hair out of his face.

The sclera of his right eye is painted a deep scarlet. You know that condition— that _symptom._ Jolting back like you’ve been burned, you knock into his desk and make the stack of papers in your arms flutter to the floor. Julian steps back in alarm, holding both hands up in surrender.

“I didn’t want… I didn’t want anyone to find out.”

You open your mouth— to scream? To demand he answer why? To ask how he _survived?_

Nobody survives the plague. The amount of bodies, live and dead, shipped to the Lazaret each sundown would answer that. 

He presses a gloved hand to your mouth before you even suck in the breath. Leather presses against your lips and you exhale into his palm. “Please, no one can know. Not yet. I… I have to see what this means. I’ve tried it on _myself,_ and it _works,_ but on y—on someone else, I don’t know.”

Julian cards his fingers through his hair, but you’re transfixed by the contrast between his two eyes. The left is still white, with the grey iris like a summer storm that you found yourself staring into when you’re meant to be _working_... But his right… Thousands of infected gazes stare into yours, drilling holes in your head, stabbing daggers in your back— But always, always in pairs.

How is only one of them like that?

Your question comes murmured, and you sidle closer into the good doctor’s space to get a clearer look. His stutters fall on deaf ears as you stand on your toes to squint up at him, reveling in his nervous attention darting over each of your features in turn.

“I, er. That is, I mean--”

Typically, patients have _both_ eyes fall red when they become sick. Why is only one of his red, you wonder?

He meets your eye— you realize you’re about two inches apart. At some point, you curled your hand around his arm to stabilize yourself, and your chest presses against his. Probably not your most professional moment, you think as you quickly detach, and you feel your cheeks flush with heat. 

“That’s… that’s why I wanted to ask for your… Assistance. I tried it on me, but I want to make sure it can help others, too.”

Julian’s lips tug down in a frown so forlorn, you falter for a moment. He’s usually so cheery in such a dark, damp place, bringing stories and laughter with every turn of his heel. You watch his shoulders slump, a hand at the back of his neck, the permanent shadows ringing his downcast eyes; he’s got some kind of ridiculous courage to keep up that front for so long. 

When his hand falls back to his side, you catch it in yours, threading your fingers between his. Julian startles, looking down at you in shock, but you hold fast and don’t turn away.

You’ll help him. Of course you will. You could swear he squeezes your hand before letting it go, but his features contort into worry.

“I heard you hurt your hand earlier today— can I see it? The cut, I mean.”

That’s true: someone broke a glass and you were the accidental finder of the shards. Julian glances between your face and your bandaged hand, beet red. There’s sweat on his brow.

“… Do you trust me?”

Do you trust him? _Do_ you trust him? That’s… an odd question. But coming from Doctor Devorak, not the oddest. Still, with the way he stands in front of you, one grey and one red eye staring into yours, you say the answer that immediately comes to mind. You do, you tell him, and when his genuine smile lights up his face you start laughing, despite the situation.

Bandages wrap around your palm— blood still seeps through the gauze. His smile quickly drops and he almost stumbles in his haste to check your hand, looking between it and you with a furrowed brow.

“Are you alright? How did it happen? _Who_ broke the glass?”

You’re fine, you told him, and that’s not important, you answer, but his concern makes your face warm. You ask if this injury will work for… whatever his plan is.

“You— er. This is perfect. May I?”

It’s a strangely intimate moment. Julian unwinds the bandage from your hand, and you realize it’s the closest you’ve been together outside of work proximity. Sure, you’ve bumped his arm or stood close when shadowing him during a surgery or a patient check-in, but that was in a much more professional manner. He lets your hand rest atop his like it’s made of fine china instead of skin and bone, like he’s afraid to drop it.  
He’s not like this with the patients you see, you’re certain of that. (You’re too busy thinking to notice that he stares at you while your mind runs elsewhere, committing you to memory while he knows you’re not looking.)

Julian drops the bandages into a waste basket next to his desk and examines your hand; the cut crosses your palm along your heart line, only an inch or two across, but it’s far deeper than your average accidental cut. The way Julian looks up at you with such worry in his eyes makes you want to pull your hand away, but he grabs your wrist before you turn.

“Ah-ah-ah, no budging. You said you’d help me test it. … Are you sure this was an accident? It’s much deeper than what I’d call a slip of the hand.”

It was an accident, you reply, far too quickly for his tastes. He cocks a brow.

“… Was it Lucio?”

Yes. You tell him no.

You were the unlucky apprentice that got in his way when he demanded to go downstairs to the dungeons, to get results for his illness. He threw a wine glass at you in a blind, malady-induced rage— you caught it, but didn’t realize the glass was chipped already from him slamming it on the dining room table previously. You can’t very well _tell_ anyone about it; you’re just a lowly assistant to the good doctor. People might believe you, as it wasn’t out of character for the Count, but the courtiers sniff around every corner. You’d like to keep your job and keep helping, thank you very much.

A darkness spreads over Julian’s countenance, but he doesn’t say another word. Instead, he takes off his gloves, clasps your hand in both of his, and closes his eyes. You feel an odd tingling on your palm… and watch as the cut stitches itself back together. 

You ask him if he practices magic in a jumble of curious and shocked words. Julian knows you were Asra’s apprentice first. Magic comes as second nature to you, even if it’s not the most useful in the medical field.

“Oh, _no._ Hah. No, this is… This is something different.”

A single point of light shines out from under his jaw. You reach up, slide a finger under his chin, and lift his head up to see it better (noticing but not commenting on how his blush reaches all the way down to the hollow of his throat). A detailed white symbol glows against his neck, if only for a minute or two, but you watch how he swallows beneath the mark before it fades. Something wet splats onto the floor on the edge of your earshot.

“Oh, huh. Hm.” Julian sucks in a breath between his teeth. “This is an unexpected side effect.”

Where the gash once bisected your palm, it now cuts across his, dripping blood between his fingers onto the ground. You jump into action, calling upon your magic to bring the chair forward and behind Julian’s legs as he near collapses into it, and you dab at the blood on his palm with a handkerchief from your bag. Thank goodness you’re in your regular clothes today; the doctor’s uniforms don’t have many pockets.

“Please, it’s fine, I’ll be alright—”

You find purchase on the hem of your shirt and _rip._

Julian’s protests die in his throat as you fashion a makeshift bandage from the fabric of your top, kneeling to his level and winding it around his palm, tying it tight on the back of his hand. You decide, on a whim, to lift his hand to your mouth and gently press a kiss to his palm. It’s only when you look at him that you catch him staring at your lips in wonder, as if you healed his every ill with a single touch.

You ask if that’s alright, it’s not too tight, is it? You could heal it if it won’t stop bleeding—

Your worries get quite rudely interrupted by Julian surging forward and kissing you. It’s over almost as soon as it starts, and he starts to sputter out an apology, but you curl your newly healed fist into his collar and pull him right back, returning his previous kiss in full force. His uninjured hand lands on your hip and grips hard when you tangle your fingers in his hair. Julian makes a soft noise against your lips when you pull away, but he doesn’t let you get too far; his breath hits warm against your cheek, both red and grey eyes heavy-lidded. The first voice to cut through the silence is yours: You’re guessing this isn’t the kind of assistance he needed.

Julian laughs quietly; he snakes his arm around your waist.

“Probably not. What I can say is that it’s the kind of assistance I, er, I wanted.”

Your ill-hidden shock makes him frown. “Are you… Surprised?”

Well… Yes.

Julian smiles, soft, affectionate. “You’re _my_ apprentice for good reason.”

And what would that reason be, you ask?

You dare to take your fingers from his hair and pull them along his jawline, your thumb grazing his bottom lip. The arm around your waist tightens and his hand fists into your clothes.

“Because you’re not only intelligent… but it perhaps goes without saying that I find you very, very attractive.” 

Something in your expression makes him laugh under his breath, bandaged hand coming to rest on the curve of your jaw.

“I, er... I’ve wanted to tell you that for a while, now. I know these aren’t the most romantic times for confessions—“

You snort, nodding in agreement before turning into his palm and pressing your lips to his cool skin. 

“— But I figured, well... No time like the present.”


End file.
